Author Archives: Peter Kim

Sharing “Social Business By Design” #SBBD

Today is the official publication date of Social Business By Design. It’s been a whirlwind three-year journey from the original blog post that introduced the world to “social business” to a full book describing how to make strategy and tactics succeed.

#SBBD

  • If you’re a seasoned social business practitioner, you’ll find value in the frameworks, outlines, and visual thinking. As one early reviewer wrote, “the graphics in this book are worth the price of the book alone.” We relied on the information design talents of our colleagues formerly known as XPLANE to help make the 30+ graphics make sense, in addition to the decades of strategy, technology, and marketing experience incorporated into our thinking.

We’re happy to share parts of the book with you in this excerpt in Fast Company and a download of Chapter 5. If you want more, the book is available at Amazon.com and 800-CEO-READ (< best price).

Be curious, not furious

I have a friend who is exceedingly nice. She once listened to me tell her all about a person that I considered to have behaved inconsiderately. In response, she asked me why I thought that person had acted in that manner; I told her I didn’t know. She advised me going forward to “be curious, not furious.”

What Matters In Social Business?

[this post originally published at CMSWire.]

There’s no doubt that social business has arrived. In three short years, we’ve adopted this umbrella concept to encompass function-specific concepts like word of mouth marketing, consumer advocacy, and Enterprise 2.0. But what exactly is social business? As a definition:

a social business harnesses fundamental tendencies in human behavior via emerging technology to improve strategic and tactical outcomes

There’s a lot more to unpack in support of that statement – so let’s talk about what matters in social business.

Is social media free?

In 2002, I was having a budget conversation with my CFO. I was general manager of the online store and we were discussing my requests for FTEs, technology upgrades, and marketing spend. The CFO asked me, “this is an online store…why do we need to spend any more money…doesn’t it run itself?” (I’m 99% sure he wasn’t joking.)

This week, news has been circulating that FMCG company Procter & Gamble will eliminate 1,600 jobs and shift more budget into digital media. The headline over at Business Insider is a bit more incendiary: “P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It’s Free To Advertise On Facebook.”

The statement that “it’s free to advertise on Facebook” is wrong at minimum and leads executives to a potentially dangerous point of view regarding social business.

Herding your cats in social media

People who manage social media in a corporate environment know that the activity is often less about business management and more like herding cats.

Cats!

Anyone can create an account on social media platforms and I often see companies where well-intentioned individuals create official-looking brand pages without corporate sanction. These typically aren’t a matter of “asking for forgiveness, not permission” – there’s usually a lack of controls or generally understood process in place to manage these activities. For example, a financial services provider where individual mortgage consultants create personal Facebook pages to market their services. Or a hotel company where an individual property has forward-thinking management and creates their own YouTube account. Or the software firm where a regional recruiting team starts a Twitter feed to promote their specialized activities. On aggregate, the brand appears to the public as a herd of feral cats.

SXSW Interactive 2012

SXSW Interactive 2012 is going to be a massive event.

Five months ago, SXSWi 2011 saw record attendance of just under 20,000 paid attendees. Seven months from now, SXSWi 2012 is going to be even bigger based on early signals. ALL event spaces are booked. Downtown hotels are already sold out. Over 3,000 panel ideas were submitted to SXSW 2011 (Interactive + Film + Music); over 4,500 were submitted to SXSW Interactive 2012.

Dachis Group has sixteen ideas from our social business expertise that we’d like to share as part of the Festival:

Panel recap: Making Sense of Social Business

Here’s a recap from a discussion I participated in last week in New York. Visit the Dachis Group Events page to learn more about where we’ll be in the near future to engage with you in person. [View the story “Blogworld NY 2011: Making Sense of Social Business” on Storify]

Being: Peter Kim